


good for you

by bluelines



Category: Women's Hockey RPF
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Isobel Cup Final - 2019, NWHL
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 20:37:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18598972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluelines/pseuds/bluelines
Summary: Losing sucks. Losing sucks even more when everyone knows just how capable you are of winning it all.





	good for you

Hayley is extra quiet at dinner. Most everyone is too rowdy to notice, but Blake slings an arm around her shoulders on the walk back to the hotel, and Hayley is embarrassed before she even opens her mouth. 

“You nervous?” Blake asks. 

“No,” Hayley lies. 

“You’re gonna be great,” Blake says, squeezing her shoulder, “you always are.”

Hayley just says thank you. She doesn’t say that that’s the problem, that her first playoffs with the team still haunt her because she knows, although nobody else seems to, that she’ll never be able to replicate that. They all expect her to. She set the bar too high. Maddie is her roommate, which would normally be fine except that Hayley is afraid she’s going to be all energy tonight, and all Hayley wants is to sit in the quiet even though she knows it’s the last thing she needs. 

Maddie and Jacquie are loud when they say goodnight in the hallway, joking about something from dinner, which lets Hayley slip into their room unnoticed. 

“They gave you guys a room so you wouldn’t stay up all night flirting over text,” Nic had said when the assignments came out. It’s not like that. Hayley would never stay up the night before a game. Besides which, when they’re on the road or with the team they’re very professional about it. Generally. 

When Maddie comes into the room, Hayley disappears to shower without saying anything. She’s hoping when she gets out Maddie will be scrolling through Instagram or something and not paying enough attention to read her. She’s wrong, and it surprises her. 

Maddie sits up when she comes back into the room and watches her carefully. 

“You’re doing that thing,” she says. 

“I’m not doing anything,” Hayley replies.

“Yeah,” Maddie says, “you’re doing that thing again. Going into your brain hobbit hole.”

“Shut up,” Hayley says, “I’m just tired.”

“You can’t sleep in the hobbit hole,” Maddie points out, and Hayley knows she’s right. 

“Well, okay,” Hayley says, flopping into her bed and rolling to face Maddie on her own bed, “I know that, but I’m still tired.”

“Let’s put something stupid on TV,” Maddie says. When Hayley doesn’t answer, she settles back against her pillows and pats the mattress next to her.

“C’mere,” she says, and Hayley does. They always sleep in separate beds when they’re on the road, but they also haven’t been roommates since they started sharing a bed. The first night sleeping apart was fine--it helped Hayley put whatever _they’re_ doing on the back burner--but it does seem weird, tonight, to sleep alone. Especially when she can do this, join Maddie on _her_ bed and curl into her side. 

Maddie lets Hayley rest her head on her chest and maneuvers an arm around her shoulders. When she puts on Family Feud, Hayley realizes that’s not going to be enough to distract her.

“Okay,” Maddie says, “here are the rules.”

“Oh no,” Hayley mumbles.

“When he asks the question we both have to say an answer, and whichever one of us gets the higher number of points wins.”

“Wait,” Hayley says, “what if neither of our answers are on the board?”

“Then we both get zeroes,” Maddie says.

“Are we keeping track of points,” Hayley asks, “or just wins?”

“Wins,” Maddie says.

Hayley falls asleep around the second commercial break.

-

When she wakes up again, she’s under the covers. Maddie is too, snoring quietly, facing away from her. Hayley loops an arm around Maddie’s waist from behind, and in her sleep Maddie fumbles along her forearm until she can find Hayley’s hand and hold it. Hayley falls asleep for good the second time with her nose pressed against Maddie’s upper back and Maddie’s fingers laced with hers.

-

After the whistle--not that she can hear it over the crowd--Hayley can only count the number of chances she missed. She goes back over them in her head again and again and again, and she doesn’t see or hear anything else except Maddie tapping the back of her hand with her glove. When they line up on the blueline Hayley doesn’t let herself focus on the Cup or the Whitecaps or the crowd; she stares out those massive windows and counts them again, all the chances she had to win the game.

Nobody tries to talk to her in the locker room after the game. She doesn’t stick around to shower because she wants to go back to the hotel, and she manages to evade her family until after that, when they insist on taking her to dinner as if there’s something to be proud of. She knows she’s being dramatic. She had a great season. They _team_ had a great season. But it doesn’t feel like that.

They can tell that she’s tired so she gets off easy with some hugs and a promise to get breakfast in the morning. The next time she has the space to breathe and register where she is, she’s back in their hotel room, reading a text from Maddie.

-

M: you should come outttt  
H: think I’m gonna go to bed  
M: you okay??  
H: just tired

-

Maddie is out with the rest of the team, probably drunk or in the process of getting drunk and Hayley sort of envies her for her ability to make herself forget. Maddie is very good at forgetting feelings. She always bounces back the fastest after a loss, even one where she was pissed enough to try and fight someone. It’s like she flips a switch and goes back to making stupid jokes and laughing at herself. Hayley can’t do that and she doesn’t want to drag everyone else--but especially Maddie--down.

Hayley turns on the TV just to have a little noise. She tries laying on her own bed but eventually she gives up and goes to the bed they shared. She lays on Maddie’s side and inhales and lets Maddie’s scent comfort her enough to close her eyes. She listens idly to Steve Harvey’s getting voice and wonders if she jinxed herself somehow. What feels real is this: her life had been going too well. This was always going to happen. Her career is never going to reach the peak it started at. She scored a lot of goals this season but it wasn’t enough, and she’ll score less and less every year until she fades into obsolescence, and people will still be talking about _that_ Isobel Cup run when she does. 

When the door opens it scares the shit out of her. She jerks upright against the headboard and barely manages to get her face in order before Maddie turns around. 

“Hey,” she says. 

She’s a little tipsy. 

“Are you okay?” Hayley asks. 

“Um, yeah,” Maddie says, “are you? I came back because you—I was worried. Your dad said you went back.”

Hayley blinks, processing nothing. When she catches up, her stomach drops. 

“You called my dad?” she asks. 

“No,” Maddie says, “he called me. Hoping you were with us I guess.”

“Fuck,” Hayley mumbles, leaning back against the headboard and covering her face in her hands. She’s not sure what’s setting her off more—the fact that her dad called to check up on her like she’s not a grown adult or the fact that she knew to call Maddie, even though Hayley’s never said a word to anyone in her family about the her-and-Maddie situation. 

“I told him you were with us,” Maddie says. “Sorry I, uh, lied to your dad. But I figured…”

“No,” Hayley says, “thank you, sorry he was bugging you, I’m fine, I just wanted to get away from them and I don’t feel like partying or whatever, you can go back out.”

When she uncovers her face she sees Maddie’s already taken her coat and shoes off. 

“I’m not gonna do that,” Maddie says. 

She comes close to the bed but she doesn’t sit, she just stands by the edge like she’s not sure what to do next. Hayley realizes it’s probably because Maddie can’t tell what _she_ wants. 

“We don’t have to talk about it,” Maddie says. “I don’t think I’d be any good for that. But he called me and...I wanted to be here.”

Hayley has never heard Maddie talk genuinely about her feelings. She realizes it all in a rush—that the only time she’s known how Maddie felt she was guessing or getting it from a joke—and she pushes up onto her knees at the edge of the bed so that she can reach up, put her hands on Maddie’s face, and pull her down into a kiss. 

Usually she’s the better talker. Since they started doing this, whatever it is, that’s changed. It’s like she’s tongue-tied every time she’s tried to say anything to Maddie about the fact that they’re sleeping together, the fact that everyone on the team knows, the fact that she wants it and she wants it to be more than that. She can’t say any of it. She couldn’t even say that she wanted Maddie to be here. Maddie knew anyway. 

Maddie kisses her back, resting her hands at Hayley’s elbows, but she doesn’t make a move otherwise and Hayley hates that she’s coming off as if she’s fragile. She knows that’s what it is. Maddie’s afraid to push her, and Maddie is _never_ afraid to push her. It’s why they work so well together. Hayley doesn’t want that to be past tense. 

She uses her hands on Maddie’s face to pull her down until she really can’t keep leaning over. When she starts to sit back, Maddie gets the hint and follows her down. She kneels next to Hayley, but Hayley’s impatient, and it’s annoying her that Maddie chose that instead of laying directly on top of her like she wants. Even the kiss isn’t enough. It’s too...gentle. And Maddie breaks it first, bracing herself on one hand so she can look at Hayley and continue to say nothing.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Hayley says.

“Okay,” Maddie says, but she doesn’t sound convinced. She’s not getting it. Hayley spells it out for her.

“I don’t want to talk,” Hayley says, “like, at all.”

“Oh,” Maddie says. Her expression changes, and this time she does lean down first but Hayley doesn’t let her initiate because she doesn’t want another polite kiss. She fists her hand in Maddie’s collar and pulls her in and this time she bites Maddie’s lower lip until she gets the hint. Maddie maneuvers so she can fit her leg between Hayley’s knees, then pushes her hips forward, into Hayley’s. She braces herself on her elbow and presses closer until they’re front to front, and then, finally, Hayley has what she wants—an inability to think about anything else. 

She loves that Maddie is bigger than her. They’re almost the same height but it just feels like Maddie is _more_ , like she’s longer and broader and it’s easy for Hayley to lose herself in that, to feel surrounded. She’s never wanted that with anyone else, but with Maddie all she wants is to let go, to let someone else make the decisions, and Maddie is so, so good for that. Especially like this. 

Maddie tastes like cheap beer and Hayley had hoped this time last night that she’d taste like champagne. 

She rests her hands on Maddie’s shoulders and Maddie rests her free hand at Hayley’s hips and they kiss like that for a long time without stopping to talk or take a deep breath. When Maddie shifts over her, her hair falls into Hayley’s face, and then Hayley has to break the kiss to push it out of their way. Maddie sits up on her heels and huffs when she ties her hair back. 

“I’m gonna cut it all off,” she says. 

“You always say that,” Hayley says, “you’ll never do it, you’re too vain.”

“You’d miss it,” Maddie says, and it’s true, Hayley would. She finds it funny that Maddie ties her hair back as if Hayley’s not going to tug the hair tie out in twenty minutes. This time when Maddie leans back down she rocks her thigh between Hayley’s until Hayley sighs against her mouth. 

Maddie redirects to kiss along her jaw, and Hayley deals all over again with the realization that Maddie does this almost exactly opposite to how she plays hockey. She’s careful. She’s deliberate. She’s soft. Hayley always feels like the out of control one, but Maddie doesn’t seem to mind it. She kisses Hayley’s neck intently, long enough that Hayley thinks maybe that’s all she wants to do, and then Hayley jumps when Maddie’s cold hand slips under her shirt. 

“Sorry,” Maddie mumbles against her jaw. 

Hayley reaches for Maddie’s wrist and pushes Maddie’s hand up over the cup of her bra so she won’t pull away. She had considered taking the bra off before, but now she’s glad she gets to watch Maddie do it. Maddie’s focused already, rubbing her thumb across Hayley’s breast over the cotton, and Hayley can’t actually feel much, but it’s cute. The way Maddie’s mouth is open while she watches her hand under Hayley’s shirt—it’s cute. 

“Take your shirt off,” Hayley says, half to get Maddie’s attention again. Maddie sits up on her knees and does it immediately, and Hayley takes her own shirt off, too, so that when Maddie leans back down she can really _feel_ her. Maddie’s warm even if her hands aren’t, and Hayley skates her palms along Maddie’s shoulders, pushing her hips up against Maddie’s thigh. Maddie kisses her and presses down into her and waits until Hayley has to break the kiss to reach around and squeeze her hand beneath Hayley’s back, fumbling for her bra clasp. 

Like always, she struggles to get it open. Hayley almost laughs at how intense Maddie is about it, but then her bra is being tossed away and Maddie is kissing her again and laughing isn’t appropriate anymore. Hayley only gets to enjoy the kiss for a minute before Maddie breaks it and trails along her neck to her chest. She may not be good at getting a bra off, but once it’s off she absolutely knows what she’s doing, and Hayley hasn’t forgotten. She tugs the hair tie out of Maddie’s hair and threads she fingers into it while Maddie teases her, first with her mouth and then with her hands so she can pull back and watch Hayley’s face. 

She likes the feedback. Hayley knows that. She doesn’t have to pretend, though, because the pressure of Maddie’s palms is enough for her to turn her head and press her face into the mattress. When she opens her eyes again Maddie looks like she wants to speak, but she doesn’t. Instead she shrugs out of her sports bra and Hayley flips them over, straddling Maddie’s hips and placing her hand on Maddie’s stomach just to feel her suck in a breath. Maddie always joked about being flat chested, but Hayley has always wanted to come back and say that she personally thinks Maddie’s boobs are great. It’s not something she can say in front of other people. She’s still not sure who knows. 

She doesn’t say anything now, just leans down to kiss Maddie. She hesitates just to see what will happen, and Maddie cranes up off of the bed to initiate the kiss because she wants it that bad. It makes Hayley’s heart race to think too hard about it. It doesn’t have to be any more complicated than this: Maddie wants her, and she wants Maddie. 

They lose track of time kissing again, getting progressively handsier until Maddie’s hand is down the back of Hayley’s sweats and Hayley’s is curled into the front of Maddie’s jeans, thumbing the button open. There’s not enough room for her to get her hand down into them, but she tries anyway, until Maddie pushes her away a little. Hayley leaves Maddie’s lap so that Maddie can push her jeans over her hips, and then she helps peel them off. She spends the next few seconds just appreciating how long Maddie’s legs are, sliding her hands from Maddie’s calves up to the backs of her thighs. 

Maddie is bright pink when Hayley finally looks back into her face. She gets like this when Hayley pays attention to her, and Hayley loves it, even if it makes her wonder how other people have treated Maddie in the past. Hayley drops down to kiss the top of Maddie’s thigh, then her hipbone. She presses Maddie’s knees apart and rocks up to kiss Maddie again, and Maddie wraps her arms around Hayley’s neck and melts into the bed. 

“Okay?” Hayley asks, even though she thinks she knows. 

“Yeah,” Maddie murmurs against her mouth. 

Hayley slides her hand down the front of Maddie’s underwear, but she watches Maddie’s face so she can see it when Maddie’s eyes fall closed. Hayley loves this moment, the moment where she can see that Maddie is holding her breath. She’s just teasing for now, making a distracted circle with her thumb and watching Maddie squirm. Maddie is too proud to ask for what she wants, but Hayley knows. She holds off for a while, until Maddie bites her lips, and then she pulls her hand away completely. Maddie huffs out a breath but Hayley is already tugging at Maddie’s underwear, intent on making things right. 

Maddie reaches to turn the light off, and Hayley doesn’t begrudge her that. She can still see from the light seeping in through the blinds, and it’s almost better like this, the way the light plays off of the curves and planes of Maddie’s body, the shadows cast along her neck and shoulders especially.

Hayley knows she’s good at this. 

That doesn’t mean that she doesn’t want to hear it. She loves to hear it. She loves to hear Maddie, to hear the way she exhales when she’s expecting Hayley to touch her again and the small, needy noise she makes when Hayley finally does.

“C’mon,” Maddie urges her breathlessly, and Hayley doesn’t make her wait any longer. She straightens out her fingers and Maddie groans. It’s Hayley’s favorite noise, or it’s high on the list with the sound of a puck hitting the top pipe of the goal. It’s hoarse and sexy and it makes Hayley lurch up to kiss her. Maddie can’t really keep up with the kiss while Hayley’s working her over like this, but that’s kind of the fun of it, the way Maddie turns into a mess and breathes against Hayley’s jaw and claws at her shoulders.

They’ve done this enough times that Hayley knows exactly what Maddie likes. She avoids it at first because she doesn’t want Maddie to get off right away, but when Maddie curls her hand around the back of Hayley’s neck and tries to kiss her again, Hayley gives up on making her wait. She sits back on her heels and Maddie pulls at the bedspread instead of Hayley while Hayley uses her other hand to make quick, small circles with the thumb of her free hand. It doesn’t take much of that for Maddie to lose it, and like this, Hayley gets to watch. Maddie digs her heels into the bed and pushes her hips off of the mattress and shakes apart, knocking her knees against Hayley’s hips and covering her mouth with one hand. Hayley wants to hear her but she’s not going to ask for that because whatever they’re doing, that’s not it. That, and, she’s pretty sure that Corinne is in the next room trying to go to bed.

She wants the image of Maddie trembling, just working up a thin sheen of sweat with Hayley’s hand between her legs, burned into her mind forever. When Maddie takes her hand away from her mouth she throws her arm dramatically back onto the bed and laughs breathlessly. Hayley takes her hand back and almost feel like smiling.

“Jesus,” Maddie says.

“Hayley’s fine,” Hayley quips, and she does it specifically because she knows that Maddie will get up, wobbly legs and all, and flip her onto her back. 

Maddie doesn’t have as hard a time with Hayley’s underwear as she did with the bra. She also knows what Hayley wants, and unlike Hayley she doesn’t, for once, seem terribly interested in fucking around about it. She’s always drawn to Hayley’s neck and tonight is no different; with her hand between Hayley’s legs she’s able to keep kissing along Hayley’s throat. Hayley hooks a leg over Maddie’s hip to pull her in closer, and Maddie tilts her wrist down and Hayley is so overwhelmed with all of it, with all of the feelings she’s not talking about and the pressure of Maddie’s fingers and the pinch of Maddie’s teeth against her collarbone, that she can’t keep her composure.

She gasps, turning her head and ending with a face full of Maddie’s hair, but she doesn’t care because Maddie’s not stopping. When Maddie’s done marking up her collarbone she lifts her head and Hayley sucks in air like she’s drowning, anchoring herself with an arm around Maddie’s shoulders. 

“You can let go,” Maddie murmurs, and it’s unexpectedly tender. It throws Hayley off so much that she _does_ let go, before she meant to. She usually has more control than this, but she’s got no control at all this time and she’s louder than she expects and she’s clamping her knees so hard around Maddie’s hips that she’s afraid she’s going to hurt her.

When she can breathe properly again, Maddie rolls off of her and rests her hand on Hayley’s stomach. Hayley takes comfort in that, weirdly, or maybe it’s not weird at all. Maybe none of this was weird. Maybe this is the only thing that makes sense.

Or maybe that’s the orgasm talking.

“I think we should talk,” Maddie says.

“If you’re going to dump me,” Hayley says, “can you wait until a night where we haven’t lost a championship game?”

“I’m not going to dump you,” Maddie says, “don’t be an idiot. Anyway, we’re not--I mean, are we, like, doing this?”

Hayley turns her head to look at Maddie, who’s already looking at her. It seems like an absurd question, and she can tell from the look on Maddie’s face that she feels it, too.

“Are we not already?” Hayley asks.

“I don’t know,” Maddie says, “I guess that’s why I’m asking. Fuck, I don’t know, this is so stupid, it feels like I’m in high school again, only in high school I didn’t give a shit and now I’m--I mean, I like you, obviously.”

She’s bright red again. Hayley’s smiling so hard she’s about to crack into laughter, but she doesn’t want Maddie to feel laughed at. An hour ago she couldn’t even _fathom_ feeling anything close to this about anything ever again. She covers Maddie’s hand on her stomach, and Maddie closes her eyes out of embarrassment.

“Obviously,” Hayley parrots. When Maddie doesn’t open her eyes, she adds, “obviously I like you, too. And this. Doing this with you.”

“Doing me,” Maddie cracks, and Hayley does laugh, but it’s fond exasperation more than anything else. When Maddie finally opens her eyes, the expression on her face is different than hayley’s ever seen it before. It’s so soft that her heart skips a beat even before Maddie opens her mouth.

“I’m sorry,” Maddie says, “about the game. I lost that faceoff and then--you probably could have scored there. If I could have gotten the puck to you.”

“I could have scored a hundred times tonight,” Hayley says, “but I didn’t.”

“We all could have,” Maddie insists, “it’s not just you, I didn’t mean it like that. Just that I wanted it for you. I wanted it to be your goal. I wanted to hold the cup with you and shit.”

Hayley has to laugh. The way that Maddie manages to be real and vulnerable while still being a huge shit is reassuring. It’s still Maddie, even if Maddie’s got another dimension to her now. 

“We will,” Hayley says.


End file.
